https://www.listennotes.com/e/e80a693202c34c19ad3f64ec6d8e5b7d

Wish you were one of those influencers with raving fans who binge on your every word, consume all your content, buy everything you have to sell, and demand even more? Then stay tuned while Authority Magazine columnist and BuzzFeed contributor Tracy Hazard shares strategies, tips, and tactics from top videocasters, podcasters, authors, and social influencers on creating that bingeable factor. Now let's join Tracy as she explores how to rise above all the digital noise with the Binge Factor.

Hey everyone, welcome to the Binge Factor. I'm Tracy Hazard and I have a podcaster focused in the legal area today. And I love that I'm doing these sometimes more tighter ones where we're really.

Focused on specialty areas because It helps.

Everyone who understands when you might be in a niche. She's particularly focused on helping lawyers be better marketers. So I'm welcoming Karin Conroy to the show. And Karin is a creative counsel. That is the name of her podcast. It's called Counsel Cast, but she's a creative counsel and she helps her clients figure out ways to market their practices better.

So as an award-winning recognized leader that.

Has cracked the code of smart, sophisticated, and strategic websites for law firms that result in more reach and revenue through strategic branding and positioning. Her clients are proud of the way that they look online and their firm reputation is improved because of that online presence. She and her team's goal is to enhance the success of the clients she works with through a proven online marketing process. And she shares that so loudly and openly. On her podcast, that's what I love about her show, Council Cast. And I love about the process of how she talks about marketing. She's really deep in the niche and it shows. So let's talk to Karin Conroy of Council Cast.

Council Cast, Karin Conroy. Karin, so glad to have you here.

I'm so excited for this.

I know we just chit chatted for quite a while. We're going to be like, oh yeah, we talked about that before. Because it's fun to catch up after I was on your show, now you're on mine.

I know there's a lot to talk about.

There's a lot to talk about. And it hasn't been that long. It's been a few months, but, you know, so much happened in that time.

Totally. Yeah. I mean, so much in terms of just my thought around my podcast. And anyway, I knew I was going to come on the podcast. I knew that we were going to have a lot to talk about. So I'm excited. Yeah.

Absolutely. Well, I love the concept of Council Cast. So let's tell all the listeners out there why you started it and what it's focused on.

Yes. Okay, so I own a marketing agency. We work exclusively with law firms and I've been doing this for about 15 years. So I have to try everything with marketing because I resell or when I'm talking to my clients, I have to be knowledgeable about that. So I've tried a lot of things that I would never recommend to clients and just so that I can say, okay, you know what? And actually I wouldn't say never. Like there's some cases that it's the right thing for a certain client. So I was going to use TikTok as an example, but there I do have clients who have found like random, really narrowly focused success there. So anyway, so I've tried everything and for lawyers, they're just sort of a different breed of person. And so the thought process, the decision process, and the way that they need to be convinced is a very long process. And they really need to believe that you know what you're talking about, that you're an expert, I'm going to use that phrase, thought leader. And the way to do that is not with ads, it's not with these kind of very very smarmy looking, I'm desperate for your money kind of approach. Instead, it's I present myself as an expert. And so from the beginning, way back, I was on this website called lawyerist, where I was the only one who wrote about marketing. And I was writing marketing articles for years and years, and they were never pitchy. They were very informative, very educational. We're going to just talk about it was only like a year or so after I had finished my MBA, so I'm approaching it from a grad school. MBA perspective, we're going to talk theory and practical knowledge that is stuff that you might have learned in a textbook but applied to a law firm. So as time goes on, I'm trying all these other marketing things. And then a lot of the firms need PR and their approach to that is usually hiring some kind of PR person and trying to get like on CNN or with these big publications. And of course, I have to try that myself as well. and what I found is that I don't necessarily want those giant publications because that's casting way too wide of a net. And even if it might have this huge reach, there's a tiny percentage of the people who are my potential clients. So instead, I was finding a lot of success by guest appearing on podcasts like this. And so I spent probably a year and a half or so going on guests podcasts until I was on one twice where he was like, why don't you have your own podcast? I'm like, oh, yeah, Exactly. And I was like, oh gosh, it seems like so much work. But at the same time in the back of my mind, I was like, I know exactly how I would do it.

Cause you'd done enough guesting at that point.

Yes, exactly. And like every time something would happen on another podcast, I'm like, well, I would not do that. That's not for me. And so I already had this list kind of going in my head about what I liked, what I didn't like, what I thought was useful and helpful and then what I thought was so boring and that I would never do. Then I started looking into it and decided that I was only going to do it if I knew it could be super successful and I had major support where I didn't have to invest as much time and I could kind of trade money for the support level amount of time that's involved in putting together a podcast. So that's kind of the backstory and how I got started on it.

Yeah, and when you're talking marketing to people who don't understand it, you also have to take it in little pieces. And so a long tail method of marketing is necessary. How did you like that about podcasting where you could kind of flow the subject matters?

I love that because I am a planner. Like, I love spreadsheets. I right now am planning vacations for about 18 months out. It's way out. So for me, that totally works with my brain. It works with my systems too. And so when I look at the, when I take a step back and I consider the podcast part of just my content strategy, I plan my entire content strategy. So that includes my website, blog posts, social media, YouTube, and everything that we're promoting. And I put together a whole plan so that all of those pieces work together. So when I'm on the podcast, in that week, we're talking about one topic and we're covering that on the blog, but not necessarily exactly the same, but in the same realm. And so this year I decided that I needed to step back and I wanted to just kind of do a high level marketing strategy because I feel like this is really where most businesses and firms get things wrong. So this year I put together this whole marketing plan. And I'm going week by week through what my definition of the marketing funnel is. So I have podcast guests that talk about each part of that marketing funnel and how whatever their expertise is works in the marketing funnel. Because as you picture the marketing funnel, you picture your whole marketing strategy. And it's an easy way to kind of think through your whole marketing plan. So for me, that was the only way I could do that is in podcasting. And like a long scheduled approach because if I sat and did one episode that went through all of that, it would be like 14 hours long.

And yeah, it's really a course and nobody wants to take a course, not at your client level, right?

No, no, there's valuable courses out there, but I feel like there's so many people who have just kind of made that gross. And so I don't want to sell a course. Yes.

No.

Well, I don't think your client base is right for it. I mean, they're too busy, right? As you said, for your own purposes, you're willing to trade money for time. They are too. They're just cautious about that money because they want to make sure they get the results they want because it's a loss of time if you do something that takes so long to achieve a result.

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And I regularly will put myself on the same level with my clients because I run the same kind of business. and I went to grad school. We all had the same kind of student debt. And I went to grad school for business. They went to grad school for law. And so, like, together with an ideal client, I can fill all these gaps that they didn't necessarily learn in law school. And so I'll regularly kind of compare the way I've set things up in my business to the, what I recommend works for a typical law firm. Yeah.

And, you know, I think when I have had many, many lawyer clients and other things over the years, that they have a very interesting mix. And that's what you're noticing here of analytical and ego. Like it's honestly, it's both mixed together. And if you don't understand that, if the marketing method isn't associated with that or it doesn't play into that strength, it doesn't work.

Yeah, absolutely.

And it depends on the type of lawyer, but they're either also highly geared towards written things, which most of them are. So your blog component is a really smart and important part of to your strategy. Tell us a little bit more about the website strategy in general that you've used to be as a companion to your podcast.

Yeah. So to start, the first question was whether to embed it into just my current agency website or to have a separate website. And this is something I talk to firms about a lot because it is a debate and there's no one right answer. It depends on your situation and it depends on also the amount of time and effort you want to put in because you are dividing your time and effort. So there's no question about that. But at the end of the day, I decided for this case to have it be a separate website because I wanted to have separate branding. I wanted the look to be slightly different and I wanted the two to speak to each other. So I do also embed, so I have two websites. I have the CouncilCast website, I have my agency website. And the branding on the agency website is very lawyery looking with a little bit of an edge. Like it's, blue with a little bit of greatness. It's not, it's not like overwhelmingly edgy. It's not like I'm trying to be a downtown New York creative agency. I'm talking to lawyers. And so this has to feel like a comfortable space. But the website for the podcast, it's got much brighter colors. It's not, again, not weird. It's still gonna be speaking to lawyers.

It's just got more energy.

That's the way I would describe it. Yeah, and a little more casual. So I'm not in a suit in my pictures there. I'm in more kind of like casual but nice so that's the branding side of it. And then from SEO and trying to like improve the rankings and results on both sites, I make sure that I cross reference each of them. So I have backlinks between the two of them and they're speaking to each other and the calls to action on the podcast. So the things I'm trying to get people to do on the podcast link over to the agency site. So it's not salesy, it's not overwhelming, but it's like, Hey, we're talking about social media here on this episode. you probably are listening for a reason. Maybe you want to click over here and look at the kind of services we have for that. But it's not like smash in the face, pop up over, you know, social media, social media, click here. It's just kind of nice and subtle and kind of referencing each other. So that's kind of how I initially set it up. But yeah, there's a lot of behind the scenes work on just the cross referencing between those two. And then on the agency side with that content plan, we're doing that this complimentary blog post at the same time in that same week. So if we're doing a episode and we're talking about social media, we're going to have a blog post that is kind of complimentary, but not exactly the same. But it's going to be in the social media.

I want to make sure I got this right. So are you doing it on the CouncilCast side or are you doing it on your regular agency?

On the agency side.

So the agency side has like a shorter, more compact, regular blog, if you want to think of it. And then it references over.

Some of them are really long. Yes, and then we also promote on both each episode. So every episode goes on both sites and then agency website, because that site gets a lot more traffic. That's where like also if you want to read more, here's another blog post about this. And it's kind of we're working on that traffic that's coming in that week and seeking that topic to provide them multiple opportunities. So there's the post about the podcast and then there's a secondary post in the same topic area. those are on the agency side.

Love it. So you're really doing a great job of cross referencing. So now the other thing that I really like about this for your strategy, and it would be my choice for some people, when they have a very aged site, my recommendation is usually just to drop it right in there. But if you were kind of building both sites up at the same time, or if there isn't a lot of value yet to a particular site, then you have the option to do both. So I'm very sure you were similarly in that stage because you were building your business about the same time that you you're starting this podcast.

So my agency, I've had for like 15 years. So my agency site. So like if I were advising a law firm, I would probably not tell them to do what I did. Because the goal here is just thought leadership and for it to all come back to that firm. And so you don't want them to necessarily take that separate step. You want all of that traffic and the juice and the energy that you're getting from that podcast episode to come back to your firm. site, unless there's some reason. But like, for example, there's some firms we've worked with where the topic area is slightly kind of a left turn from their day to day stuff. For example, if they do like dispute resolution and it's kind of like a separate business or, you know, some other thing, some topic that is not quite in line with the exact work that they do. But if it is, then it should be on your firm's site. And you don't need to get another domain. You don't need to get more hosting, all the technical work and all the SEO. doesn't have to be duplicated. So I did it specifically for a list of reasons that I wanted it, but that's not the common answer. And it probably wouldn't be my recommendation for most people.

For most people, I agree with you. But the interesting part about what you've done here is though, in your particular case, because you have guests on your podcast, keeping them separated to council cast and not having them associated with your agency gives you a separation that I think is really necessary for your particular niche.

100% because there are some where we kind of overlap in some of our services. And so I'm not going to promote their business on my agency site. That's weird. Most of the time, if it's too much of an overlap, they're not coming on the podcast. No thanks, Seth. I've had lots of absolutely competing businesses reach out, like, and sometimes they have like a PR person reaching out, but I'm like, did you look? No.

I'm always so surprised. I know. And I really think they didn't check it out. But I think this is point for you is that sometimes you don't want to endorse what they do. You don't know if they're any good. You don't know if you're going to really work with them or not. They're not real partners yet. And so that I think is one of the reasons why it's actually one of the reasons why the binge factor, the show that you're on is separated from my business podetize. It's because all of you podcasters, I want to hear what you have to say and all of that, but it's not that you're competing with us, but for us, it confuses the things about you're not one of our podcasters necessarily, and I don't want to create a false association.

Right. Or even to think that we might be associated in any other way. And the other confusing thing is I have had some of the people that I work with, for example, my SEO team, I've had some of those guys on. And so that is super confusing when I sometimes work with these people and sometimes don't. And then it's like, wait, which ones are they? And so when it's separated, it doesn't matter. I'm not saying this is part of our agency. If you listen to the episode, you'll probably figure that out. But if you just glance through, you can't Till. And so there's a separation there.

So now, how long have you been doing the podcast here?

Like two and a half years. It'll be three years in November.

What are your thoughts about it now.

From when you started? Like when you started, you thought it was going to be something that it then turned out not to be or turned out to be more of?

It's a good question.

What really gelled for you?

You know, basically I wanted to, what did I really want in the beginning? I wanted a good following. I had this idea that I should have a certain number of traffic and likes and subscribers and all of that stuff that is really like been twisted. A lot of the times that's been through like the episode I had with you and talking to other podcasters about like where the value really is. Because for me, getting likes and subscribes on YouTube and don't get me wrong, our YouTube channel is doing the best of everything, but even there, that doesn't make me any money. And that's not my goal because if it was, I would lose sleep at night and I would be spinning my wheels and that makes no sense. For me to put my time and effort there versus just trying to get one person to who's a potential client, I just need one or two a year for it to be way more successful financially than to try to do that through clicks and likes and subscribes and like chasing that, that makes no sense. Whereas just trying to pull people in and provide the resources where they then trust me. That creates way more value than any of those other kind of egotistical ideas that a lot of people start podcasts for, like, oh, I'm going to be the next Mr. Beast.

I call them vanity metrics.

Yes, exactly. Exactly. So it does take some time in your own head to sort of set all that aside and say, okay, it really doesn't matter even though that's all anybody asks. How many subscribers did you have? Did you get a lot of downloads? It's like, that's not the point. And I think that's where people who are considering a podcast have to start by sort of twisting their brain around where their goals are and setting that piece aside. Like, that's not it.

Yeah, it takes, like you said, some time into it. It's not a fast media type. It's not a fast marketing method.

No, and all good marketing is the same. The thing I say over and over is the two most important things with marketing are consistency and patience. And nobody wants to hear that because it doesn't sound like this golden ticket, but it's true. And if you are consistent and patient with most of your marketing, that is what will pay off in the end. And this podcasting fits right in with that. You have to be very patient. And going back to your question about like, what was I thinking in the beginning? I knew in the beginning that I didn't really know. and so when I'm kind of talking to potential clients, one of the things I really value is people who don't know what they don't know. And so I had to kind of go into it myself that way and say, okay, I don't know. I don't know how this is going to turn out. I see a lot of people getting big success and lots of really quality people coming through the door because of this. I'm going to try it out and I'm going to see what happens. And if I do this the right way, this seems like a no-brainer yeah.

You know, I think that's really such a kind of the experiment approach, right? And there's so much of marketing that is an experiment because there's variables that are different, right? I mean, even when you try something that you know is tried and true, worked before, it doesn't necessarily mean it will work every single time. And I think there's too much in marketing today that's disingenuous about it and isn't honest that says, I can't guarantee these results. They're like, it's just not gonna happen.

Yeah.

Every single time, exactly the same way.

Especially with the legal industry, because they For whatever reason, all the rules that everybody knows about marketing just never applies there. So what I've found in terms of ads and trying all these different things doesn't apply. Social media, it's merely like in the presence and very, very just superficial kind of thing. There are no results that really work for me on social media except LinkedIn, where I feel like that's a different category. But this kind of stuff is what works. this thought leadership long plan, presenting yourself as an expert, and the idea of having this long-term strategy with a goal of just kind of that slow, steady growth. And a lot of people just don't want to hear that. That's the painful part. Well, I think the part that is.

So interesting the way you're saying that is my clients say the same thing to me. They say, oh my gosh, Tracy, you're everywhere. Like, how do you have time for all this marketing? And I'm like thinking to myself, I have like no followers on Instagram. I was like, you followed it and it was for you, right? Like that was the point was that you saw it and it gave you that perception. It didn't matter to me that I had a thousand likes or a hundred thousand likes. It doesn't matter to me because the right person saw it.

That's it. Yeah, that's it. That you don't necessarily like who wants a hundred thousand people calling you in a week? Nobody. Like that's just not the goal. The goal is whatever your number is. For me, it's maybe one or two quality ones a week. Like that's a pretty low number. And so trying to figure out how to make that kind of a number convert is a different exercise than casting this massive net and trying to be Kim Kardashian.

Yeah, absolutely. It's not gonna happen in our fields here.

Nor do I want it to.

Yeah, exactly. So I loved going on your show. I had a lot of fun with it because I love that it was dialed in a niche. So I knew exactly the audience I could talk to, where so often when I'm a guest on a show, it's so general. that it's very difficult for me to figure out what story should I tell this time? What tips should I give? You're just so focused and I love that. It's beautifully brilliant in that model of being niche. It is your binge factor. And that's really critically important is if somebody's right in that niche, there is.

No way they're skipping episodes. Right. Exactly. Exactly. And when I plan it out, like this year, they're going through this marketing funnel and it's like, okay, I've got my top of the funnels, this dialed in. And the part that I really focus on is this bottom of the marketing funnel, because this is where most people get it wrong. And it's like, I lead up to that. And I'm like, you're not going to miss this because this is what you're probably doing wrong.

And so that's going to be next time. Well, and I think that's the second part of what I really saw in your show that's so brilliant about your model of the way that you do it, is that you're not so often somebody would say, okay, I'm going to teach all my clients about the funnel, right? Like, or I'm going to teach my prospective clients what they need to know. But you're not. You're having a conversation with a guest, you're talking through it, and you're as an example of something. So you're giving them enough information to understand what it is, but you're not teaching them anything because they don't really need to know it. They need to know you know it.

Exactly. That is such a major strategic difference in both the way that we do our marketing and the way I present myself and my agency, but also the way we tell lawyers to show up. Because whatever kind of law you do, there's so many different kinds, but no matter what, they want to come to you and they don't want you to like reach behind, there's some firms that still have like the wall of law books. They don't want you to reach behind, grab like a law book and start quoting like law. They want to know that you are going to get this done and that they can leave it in your hands and they can walk away and whatever the issue is that you're going to resolve it. And maybe you're still going to jail or maybe you're still gonna go through this divorce and owe somebody a bunch of money and maybe Whatever, but you've got somebody who's got your back and that's the same approach with our marketing. So I'm not going to sit here and say, okay, there's the five Ps of marketing and we're going to go through it. We're not going to do that. We're going to say, talk about how you can kind of apply these theories to broader marketing ideas, but it's also like a 30 to 40 minute show. Like we're not going to go super in depth. It's just going to be, you know.

The thing that they probably are really listening for is the thing they didn't know they were missing, right? And it's not about the stuff they already do. They already know it's about that stuff that's not working and an idea for something they haven't tried yet.

Yeah. And oftentimes it's like, okay, what are most people getting wrong about this? And we'll talk about that a lot. The other thing I love that I do is I'm a super voracious reader. And so towards the end, I have this book review and it kind of just twists the conversation a little bit. And towards the end of the episode when people might just be like, whatever, I'm done. It keeps them sort of engaged and listening. And so I have every guest recommend a book. We have a whole library on the website and we're just talking about a business book. But then we also kind of tie that back into whatever we were talking about. But then we have like links to all of those books because I love talking about books and it brings another perspective into this whole conversation too. So it brings a third expert into whatever we're talking about. And it's like a third published expert who ideally knew what they were talking about.

Absolutely. But I think also, again, you're tying so into the type of person who's listening to your show.

Exactly.

They're a listener. they're a reader, they're a writer in this case, and mostly legal writers, but still that all of those things tie together. So you've really hit on their personality types and their learning modalities.

Exactly.

And I'm not trying to sell them the book. Like, I don't care if they buy the book. I'm going to put the link in there in case they do want to, but that's just for convenience factor. I am not even trying to get like Amazon credits for that. That's like silly. It's not worth it. No, I'm not trying to be salesy. I'm trying to be informative and helpful and educational and, hey, here's a great book that if you get nothing else, maybe you get a cool book to add to yourself. So, and you'll listen to the whole thing because the book thing is at the end.

Because once you know that, you'll listen through, right?

Why not? Exactly.

Exactly. Well, let's talk a little bit about a choice that you made. So you chose to join a network.

That was focused around the legal industry.

Yep. And you chose to sort of enter into that space with them with the idea, I'm sure that you would have more listeners because of that, right? Because they were doing the heavy lifting on the marketing side.

Exactly.

What made you decide that and then how is it working out for you?

So the network that I'm on is specific to the legal industry and that was one of my initial goals. And so in that initial where we were talking about a few minutes ago, the initial setup and how I wanted to do it, I'm not going to do this if I can't be on this network because it's well known some of my colleagues who are like the most well known legal podcasts out there are on this network. and they get major guests, you know, like, I think Justice Ginsburg was on one. I mean, like, major guests in the legal, like, the celebrities of the legal world, if that is a thing. Some of these podcasts do really well. And they had one-ish other marketing podcasts, but no female hosts. It was all these kind of white guys.

Doesn't surprise me.

Exactly. Well, there aren't a lot of other women like me. It's all a very masculine world. So I felt like this is very targeted and I don't want to just throw this out to the whole world. I know exactly who my audience is and I want to aim it directly at them and this is where they're found. And so from the beginning, that was my goal. I want to be on that network and if that doesn't happen, I'm going to second guess this whole thing. I'm going to kind of take a step back and because I really feel like that's the goal in the path forward in order to get those quality leads. Like at the end of the day, I don't need lots, but I didn't want this to be an extremely expensive endeavor. And I'm fine with investing for a while as long as I see that it's paying off and there's, it's in growth mode. So I think we're leading to the next part. Yeah.

How's it going?

So the first, almost two years, at least 18 months, all the charts, because I'm a big chart and graph and spreadsheet person, all the charts were like, Soaring, oh, going straight up. And it was amazing. I had this guest, Celeste Headley, who's an NPR correspondent, and it was amazing.

I know who Celeste Headley is.

Yeah. Amazing. And she was so great. And we were basically talking about how lawyers who are so smart are really bad at communication. So it's like, it was so good. So check that one out. If you don't look at any other.

Episode, that was probably one of the best.

That's a great one. Yeah. Yeah. So that was all in growth mode. Things were going good, and the leads were rolling in. So it was working. and then this is the kind of part of the story where then there's like that hero's journey where all of a sudden they're like walking through the dark night of the souls. This is where we're at. And then it just turned. And the sad thing is, I don't really know what happened and neither do they. And I have continued to, my guests are amazing and I know what topics work. I know what topics turn the traffic and we're doing that. I don't feel like, I know I fine tune the subject matter and the episodes, the quality, all of that. And we all of a sudden hit a peak and then it has just been like a nosedive. So both traffic leads, just success overall took a downward turn and it's just not been doing well.

And we talked about this before. So I want the audience to hear this, that there are some timings that correspond with changes in the marketplace or changes in the technology. And so if this occurred in October, November of of 2023 and then January, February of 2024. If those were the two time periods where we saw dips, those were when two major changes happened at Apple and everybody started losing who were in certain areas. That's not the timing for you though. So that's an indicator that there's something else going on that is outside of your control. And so that's the time when you really need to get an outside view, right? Like there's just no other way to take a look at it because they're not giving you answers.

No, and I am more than generous in understanding the marketing process. So I decided to give it one whole extra cushion year. Year, like not a month or six months, but a whole year to see if we could get it turned around. And that's not happening. It's we're seven plus months into that year and it's, there's no turnaround happening for sure. It's just continuing to either flatten or decline.

So We just did an episode in Feed yout Brand. Actually, my partner did because I was in jury duty. And so he did it alone, but I gave him all my points to make because I was worried that I was like, Please don't forget these things because I do want you to cover them. But we just talked about this idea of like, sometimes these networks are not right for you. And I totally agree with your reason for choosing it, right? If you can go into an area that's going to bring you narrow traffic, right? Like it's all focused in your area, it can be the biggest boost.

And usually it's great when you're starting out.

So it's really good there. But where we see it start to decline is when they don't have anything beyond the boost of starting. Yes.

I honestly, I feel like that's basically what's happened is the sustained growth once you're past that initial, it's like a dating relationship. You've got this like exciting initial honeymoon phase and then it's like, okay, is this gonna really last though? Like can we get beyond that? And that's kind of where we're at. It's been more than a little bit of time. We're two and a half plus years into this whole podcast. And so I've been more than fair with looking at the numbers and it's not happening. So this is at the point where it's like, okay, so let me evaluate my options and figure out, come back to, okay, what's my goal here? My goal is not the numbers per se, but the main number in terms of even just flat growth and the leads. If I was continuing, if the numbers were declining, but I was still getting some leads, I'd probably be okay, but that's not happening.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, it would be remiss of me to not ask a marketing expert. Has there been any marketing tactics or marketing things that you found that works.

For you and marketing your podcast?

Oh, in marketing the podcast, I do think YouTube is the way. I mean, that's just the short answer. Like, it can be on all the platforms and Spotify and Apple and all of that. And there is, I feel like for our podcast, the audio version is a different audience than the video version that watches it on YouTube. So I do still account for both, but there's not a lot of overlap. And I've seen the most significant growth on YouTube, but at the same time, I feel like the consistent quality people are listening. So it's both. But at the same time, like, do not ignore YouTube. Like, that is such a gold mine.

Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree with you. Have you noticed any shift now that Google Podcast is gone and YouTube music has taken over in the podcast. Did you see any shift in the show yet?

Yeah, not really. I just keep looking at the overall decline. So that's, you know, YouTube is not declining, but the overall decline on the network is just, it is kind of what it is. Yeah.

Well, I think you'll start to see it. One of the things that we had a couple of clients who found was that if you get someone who's already good on YouTube as your next guest, then You see a bigger boost over there too. So that's another place to look at guests for. So might be in for the future, right?

Totally. That's a great idea. I'm going to write that one down.

There you go. Well, I love it. So I think you're doing something really interesting that everyone should hear about. And that is that you are offering, and I love you call it the Marketing Co-Council, trademarked. Of course, because it's illegal, Michelle, right? We have to do that. But Marketing Co-Council, I love it. It's so niche dialed into appealing. It makes your audience smile, right? Your target listener is smiling when they hear that. It is the idea of fractional marketing. And I think a few years ago, you could have charged anything in the legal business, but it's a down market and it's a market that needs to be very considered about the expenses that they're spending and how they're doing that. And you're tied right into that. So tell us a little bit about how fractional marketing works in your industry.

So this is really aimed at kind of midsize. By midsize, I mean at least probably 25 or 30 attorneys in a firm where they are at that point where they would probably start to consider hiring an actual marketing person in their firm. But instead of doing that, and oftentimes what I've seen, because oftentimes that's my point of contact is some marketing person that's been assigned a role. Oftentimes that person was somebody's assistant and they're like, hey, I know Instagram. Does that mean I'm a marketing person? Sure, you know, or they I'm trying to think of a nice way to say they have no right to be there, but they basically have no right to be there.

They're thrown into the job and then they're like, woohoo, yeah.

They're even excited because they're like, oh, I thought I was going to be somebody's assistant for the rest of my life. So we've seen this a lot and they don't have a background in it. They definitely don't have an MBA and they don't have a whole team behind them. So they're going to hire someone like me and then they're going to piecemeal their marketing. And so we're another major approach to marketing that I think is super important is that you need to start with strategy, not tactics. And tactics are all your little pieces like the social media or your blog post or your newsletter or whatever, but without having a strategy and a plan in place, those make no sense. And so you're just throwing spaghetti at the wall. And that's what these kind of inexperienced marketing people were doing. So instead this program Aims to bring someone at my level in at a lower cost, but to get the same kind of results. And so we plan out a whole year of marketing. It's strategic. We have a plan, and then we apply the tactics to the plan. And you have this like dependable monthly fee too. So that's my little pitch for that.

Yeah. And I think that's really key for this economy type that we're talking about right now. It's like you have to have different packages and you have to fluctuate how you work when the economy shifts on you. And that this is a great timing for that. I'm so glad you're offering that. I think there's a lot of companies that are going to need that, and.

Especially a lot of law firms. Yeah, I just really, I feel like it's the way forward. It's kind of this gig economy idea, you know, where I want to get somebody super high quality. We're not quite there budget wise, but this brings in high quality without having to hire someone and do the benefits. And like, I'm not an employee, obviously, so I don't have all of that. So it works out so well. And I get this really amazing quality of client on these plans that, I mean, I enjoy it so much and it just ends up being this really great kind of mutually beneficial relationship. Oh, I'm so glad you're doing that.

I love that. And I love the Council cast. It's such a great podcast. I had so much fun being on your show. So when you listen to this listeners out there, we're going to have the pair up so you'll be able to find both of them. So you can hear me on Karen's show and you can hear her on mine.

Right?

Like, so you get best of both. It's going to be fabulous.

So Karen Conroy, thank you so much for being here. Oh, thank you. oh, my gosh, thank you so much. That was so fun. I feel like we could fill like five shows just with all the stuff we have to talk about. But that was good.

So I told you we were gonna talk a lot about stuff in the niche and really how this idea of.

Being a marketing co-counsel, right? Like that's what we're doing. We're advising, we're collaborating, we're co-creating with whoever our listeners are because you don't know what they're gonna take away from what we say and then bring into their business. I'm always a really big fan of giving more, right? Giving something that they can use because when they become successful with it, with your advice and what you do, they treat that as if you assisted their business, right? Now they wanna reward you. If they're not gonna reward you, like they're not an ideal client for you and they're not gonna be a part of, you know, they're not gonna hire you, the first thing they're gonna do is refer you to someone who will because they'll be thinking about how you assisted them and made an improvement in their business and how they can give back to you. So that's something that I see happen really often in a good podcast that.

Is so focused like Karen's is. So I really want you to think.

About, like, as you're listening to her show, how can you do this kind of model where you're really bringing them fractional assistance with your podcast? I love the idea of being a marketing co-counsel and fractionally marketing through partially.

The podcast, partially the service you provide.

All of those things. I think is an ideal way to utilize your podcast and your services to tie them together in a better way. And Karen's done this in a great way. So go ahead, listen to Council Cast, Karen Conroy, and check out what she's doing there because it could be so valuable for your client base, for your business, for your niche. And check that out and come right back here next week when I have another podcaster here on the Binge Factor.

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